


Marlene and Dorcas: To the End

by Katsala



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, Falling In Love, Femslash, First War with Voldemort, the harry potter fandom needs more femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 23:24:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8820451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katsala/pseuds/Katsala
Summary: A study of Marlene and Dorcas' relationship over the years.





	

McKinnon and Meadowes. They’re right next to one another in the Sorting. Hufflepuff for Marlene, Slytherin for Dorcas. Exactly what they expected.

 

Marlene is everybody’s sweetheart from the first day. Soft, fluffy black hair and a heart-shaped face, big velvety brown eyes, and on top of that she’s actually sweet. Her father is a Muggleborn, and her mother is a Muggleborn, and she doesn’t understand how dangerous that is at all. Her first bit of magic was making her tea taste like candy floss. She hates tea. Her older brother Matthew is the captain of the Ravenclaw Quidditch team, and her older sister Martha is the captain of Gobstones club. 

 

Nobody seems to know who Dorcas Meadowes is. She’s too tall and too blonde with hazel eyes that gleam poisonously. She bursts out laughing in the middle of her first Charms class and doesn’t stop until she’s convinced everyone she’s insane. After that she doesn’t say anything to anyone. Her father is dead. Her mother is in Azkaban for his murder. According to the whispers, nobody seems to know which one was the Death Eater. She doesn’t know either.

 

Marlene, though, thinks she has a very nice laugh. 

 

A month into school, Marlene takes the plunge and sits at Dorcas’ table in the library. People gather around to watch the show, but trickle away when it becomes obvious nothing is going to happen. Finally, when no one is looking, Dorcas leans over and, without a word, corrects Marlene’s spelling of the word Aconite. 

 

Marlene’s a bit in love with her after that.

 

* * *

  
  


Marlene starts the Auror Club, but it was Dorcas’ idea.

 

They’re sitting in the library at Dorcas’ table, six months into their friendship, and they don’t start off talking about the past. They start off talking about the future. Marlene, at this point, has no idea what she wants to do with her life. She’s drawing on the table with her wand, dragging the tip along and leaving glowing streaks behind that fade after a few moments. She spins around the idea of being a banker, like her parents, but she’s rubbish at numbers so that’s out. Or she could open up a cafe. They wouldn’t serve tea, though, she hates tea. What do you think, Dorcas?

 

“I’m going to be an Auror. They’re magical law enforcement,” Dorcas explains, even though Marlene already knows, with a hint of passion in her voice that Marlene has never heard before. “They catch bad wizards.”

 

Marlene blinks her big velvet eyes. “Why?”

 

Dorcas colors a bit, and asks, voice extra hushed, “Have you ever heard of Mad-Eye Moody?”

 

“No. Who is he?” Marlene whispers back.

 

“He’s the Auror that caught my mother.” Dorcas closes her eyes reverentially. “He came to my house afterwards to make sure I was alright. He was… he was very nice.”

 

“Ooh,” Marlene singsongs teasingly, “somebody has a crush.’

 

Dorcas’ eyes snap open. “I do not,” she says crossly. “Boys are disgusting anyway.”

 

“Yeah,” Marlene agrees. “I like girls better too.”

 

They share a look that gives Marlene butterflies in her stomach.

 

* * *

  
  


Benjy joined in second year, but it isn’t until third year Auror Club becomes ‘big.’ James Potter, all four feet of him, saunters in as if he owns the whole school and demands to join.

 

Marlene stares at him silently for ten seconds before pouncing on him so she can play with his hair. Dorcas bursts out laughing. 

 

It’s a really nice laugh.

 

After that, James and Sirius, usually with Peter, sometimes with Remus, show up every third Wednesday, to discuss training, the classes required to get the job, and, most interestingly, read the newspaper and talk about recent arrests. Frank begins to show up, and so does Alice. Lily Evans comes if she’s sure James isn’t there. 

 

On one occasion, though, after McGonagall gets irritated and gives everyone outrageous amounts of homework, it’s just Marlene and Dorcas. Marlene gets bored in the stuffy clubroom, and bodily drags Dorcas out to the greenhouses. 

 

Sprout puts them to work watering plants, which Marlene is overjoyed about. Dorcas gives Marlene her can so Marlene starts watering doublehanded. They talk about Marlene’s family and about Christmas coming up, and Dorcas you should come to my house again this year, my parents would love that, and Dorcas doesn’t notice how close they’ve gotten until Marlene turns around and Dorcas bumps into her breasts. The rest of the watering cans empty onto them.

 

“Hullo,” Marlene says quietly.

 

“Hullo,” Dorcas says.

 

Snogging is very, very pleasent. 

 

* * *

  
  


The Order of the Phoenix is essentially the same as Auror Club, but with more drinking and more occasional empty stares at the wall. 

 

Peter and Marlene get teamed up on patrols rather often, because Marlene, Dorcas notes proudly, is fabulously talented, and Peter is, well, not. Marlene calls him Petey. Sirius pretends to throw up whenever he hears her do it.

 

He asks her out to coffee six times, and she accepts every time, before she realizes he fancies her. She panics. She tells no one, not even Dorcas, and she avoids Peter like the plague for two weeks, until they get put together on patrol again.

 

“Petey,” Marlene whispers as they walk through the Muggle neighborhood where Muggle-hunters were seen recently. They look like a couple, she thinks, horrified. “We need to talk.”

 

“What about?” He asks nervously. 

 

She bites her lip. “I think I’ve been leading you on. I- I need to just nip this in the bud, alright? I adore you. You’re one of my best friends. But that is all you are to me. And that isn’t your fault, it’s no one’s fault. It isn’t about you. It’s about me, and it’s- it’s about Dorcas,” she admits.

 

“What’s about you and Dorcas?” He asks, confused, and he has every right to be because Marlene might not have always understood dangerous it was being a Muggleborn’s child, but she always, always knew how dangerous it was to love Dorcas the way she does. Dorcas works tirelessly to keep their secret. Dorcas is good at things like that.

 

But tonight, to her friend, to her Petey, Marlene opens up, tells him about falling in love and staying that way, about secret meetings in empty classrooms and about the way Dorcas flushes when they hold hands and about how much she means to Marlene, because God, Petey, she just means everything.

 

Three days later, Marlene’s entire family is dead. Nobody will know how, or why, except one person.  
  
  


* * *

 

 

“What’s wrong?” Dorcas asks when she answers the door for Sirius. There are tear tracks down his face and he’s shaking. “Oh my God, has somebody died?”

 

He struggles to talk, and she hauls him inside and sits him down on the couch. Finally, he manages to get out, “We can’t find Benjy. He’s disappeared. Moody thinks he’s been killed.”

 

Dorcas closes her eyes. Breathes in, breathes out. “But you don’t know.”

 

“No.”

 

“It’s more than that, isn’t it?” He refuses to meet her eyes. She puts the news about Benjy out of her mind, because this is more important right now, and leans forward, making sure her breasts are visible through the neck of her dressing gown, and wheedles, “Siri, please, tell me.”

 

“The McKinnons. They got the McKinnons.”

 

Her world ends. 

 

She gets dressed in two minutes and forces Sirius to take her to their house, because if she goes alone she doesn’t know what she might do. They apparate into the McKinnons front yard and Dorcas almost vomits right there in the azalea bush because there’s Marlene’s grandmother, impaled on a fence post.

 

Dorcas shakes Sirius’ hand off her and runs inside, because this can’t be happening, Marlene has to be fine, Dorcas will prove it-

 

She freezes when she sees Christine McKinnon’s body hanging from the ceiling. Her husband, Charles, is hanging next to her, his hand reaching out to her. Their faces are contorted with fear and pain.

 

“Dorcas,” a gruff voice says. Moody is behind her suddenly. He wraps an arm around her and drags her out of the house, kicking and screaming.

 

“I need to see her! I need to see her, please! Moody, let me go. Please, let me go.” She starts sobbing. “Please.” She doesn’t know what she’s asking for.

 

“No one needs to see what they did to her,” he says, then instantly regrets it when Dorcas starts fighting twice as hard. “Black! Why on Earth did you bring her here? Take her home, now!” He passes Dorcas off to Sirius like a sack of potatoes. 

 

Dorcas bites his hand and he lets her go, yelping. She spins around, apparating away. She is not going home. She is not going to sit there uselessly while Marlene is- Marlene is-

 

Dorcas is going to end this.

  
  


* * *

  
  


They’ve suspected Fawcett was a Death Eater for months. She feels absolutely nothing as she breaks into his house. The door is protected against Alohomora, so she smashes a window and crawls in, ignoring the broken glass. 

 

She waits for six hours for him to get home, and jumps him the second he walks through the door. She bashes his head against the floor, into the pile of broken glass. There’s blood everywhere. She doesn’t care. She rolls down his sleeve and stares at his Dark Mark. This is the stupidest thing she’s ever done. This is going to get her killed. 

 

But she is already mostly dead. And anyway, like Marlene used to say during Quidditch games, No guts, no glory.

 

She presses Fawcett’s limp finger to his Dark Mark. If she’s going out, she’s doing it fighting the goddamned Dark Lord, see if she doesn’t.

 

* * *

  
  


Dorcas wakes up in the Hogwarts greenhouses. Marlene is holding a watering can, and she smiles at Dorcas like she’s the most beautiful woman in the world.

 

“I cannot believe you did that.” She pour water onto the potted Mandrakes. “I swear, you have no self control.”

 

“That doesn’t seem to bother you in bed,” Dorcas deadpans, and Marlene laughs.

 

“You could have lived so much longer, though. Moody is probably devastated. Sirius, too. He’ll probably blame himself.”

 

“Oh, come on, I just fought Voldemort to the death, can you be a bit more congratulatory?”

 

Marlene snickers. “I did like the part where you rode on his back. I am quite proud of you, you know, I can’t believe you survived so long.”

 

“Thanks. Do you think I actually broke his arm?”

 

“Oh, definitely. You couldn’t see it from your angle but there was bone sticking out.”

 

Dorcas grins. “Fabulous.” She looks around. “So, is this the afterlife? I expected more pearly gates. Or maybe fire, for me.”

 

Marlene swats at her. “I think it’s perfect.”

 

“Well,” Dorcas considers, “I suppose you’re here. I could handle just the two of us for all eternity.”

 

“Everyone else is outside, actually. I’m just the welcoming committee. We can move on whenever you’re ready.”

 

“Mm.” Dorcas moves forward and wraps her arms around Marlene. The watering can splashes to the ground. “I wouldn’t mind waiting a bit, would you?”

 

“Not at all.”

  
Being dead is very, very pleasent. 


End file.
